WELCOME TO THE CFZ BLOG NETWORK: COME AND JOIN THE FUN

Half a century ago, Belgian Zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans first codified cryptozoology in his book On the Track of Unknown Animals.

The Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) are still on the track, and have been since 1992. But as if chasing unknown animals wasn't enough, we are involved in education, conservation, and good old-fashioned natural history! We already have three journals, the largest cryptozoological publishing house in the world, CFZtv, and the largest cryptozoological conference in the English-speaking world, but in January 2009 someone suggested that we started a daily online magazine! The CFZ bloggo is a collaborative effort by a coalition of members, friends, and supporters of the CFZ, and covers all the subjects with which we deal, with a smattering of music, high strangeness and surreal humour to make up the mix.

It is edited by CFZ Director Jon Downes, and subbed by the lovely Lizzy Bitakara'mire (formerly Clancy), scourge of improper syntax. The daily newsblog is edited by Corinna Downes, head administratrix of the CFZ, and the indexing is done by Lee Canty and Kathy Imbriani. There is regular news from the CFZ Mystery Cat study group, and regular fortean bird news from 'The Watcher of the Skies'. Regular bloggers include Dr Karl Shuker, Dale Drinnon, Richard Muirhead and Richard Freeman.The CFZ bloggo is updated daily, and there's nothing quite like it anywhere else. Come and join us...

Search This Blog

WATCH OUR WEEKLY WEBtv SHOW

SUPPORT OTT ON PATREON

SUPPORT OTT ON PATREON
Click on this logo to find out more about helping CFZtv and getting some smashing rewards...

SIGN UP FOR OUR MONTHLY NEWSLETTER



Unlike some of our competitors we are not going to try and blackmail you into donating by saying that we won't continue if you don't. That would just be vulgar, but our lives, and those of the animals which we look after, would be a damn sight easier if we receive more donations to our fighting fund. Donate via Paypal today...




Friday, May 20, 2016

ANDREW MAY: Words from the Wild Frontier

News and stories from the remoter fringes of the CFZ blogosphere...

From Nick Redfern's World of Whatever:
From CFZ-USA:

BIGFOOT NEWS IN BRIEF




Florida has its skunk ape, Vermont has its lake serpent, and the Pacific Northwest has its Bigfoot. Maybe Turner's mysterious monster-dog stoked our ...

White Bigfoot Seen in Tennessee Corn Field
Tennessee is the latest state to join Maine and Pennsylvania with reported sightings of white Bigfoot. Of all places, the creature was seen in a Franklin ...

FORTEAN BIRD NEWS FROM THE WATCHER OF THE SKIES


What has Corinna's column of Fortean bird news got to do with cryptozoology?

Well, everything, actually!

In an article for the first edition of Cryptozoology Bernard Heuvelmans wrote that cryptozoology is the study of 'unexpected animals' and following on from that perfectly reasonable assertion, it seems to us that whereas the study of out-of-place birds may not have the glamour of the hunt for bigfoot or lake monsters, it is still a perfectly valid area for the Fortean zoologist to be interested in.




THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN IS A LUNATIC

The Gonzo Daily - Friday/Saturday
 
Every Friday when I sit down to write this bit I seem to have a tendency to write that “it has been a peculiar week”, but this one has been weirder than usual. Perhaps it is the looming ‘flower’ full moon, I don’t know.
 
But this week we have lost the old car, bought a new car, dealt with an embarrassing, painful and rather nasty health problem for me, and one of the girls in our extended family has taken an overdose. And this is just the major stuff. And all this in the same week. And believe it or not I have stayed sober throughout.
 
Of course the girl in hospital is the most important of these events, and our thoughts and prayers are with her and her family at this impossibly difficult time. I was up late last night talking to her mother in the hospital (via Facebook), and up early this morning doing the same thing, and - to be honest - I am feeling more than slightly punchdrunk, and am looking forward to a weekend of doing as little as possible.
 
Much love and gratitude goes out to everyone who has helped and supported us this week. You know who you are, but I would like to single out Martin and Nursey, and of course, my lovely wife, but for whom blah blah blah….
 
THOM THE WORLD POET: The Daily Poem
THE GONZO TRACK OF THE DAY: Chris Squire Tribute ~...
Jon Anderson of Yes Interview
COMING THIS WEEKEND
Frank Zappa - Debate On School Beat, 1986
 
And by the way chaps and chappesses, a trip to the Jon Downes megastore: if you want to make me a happy fellow, you can:
 
buy my novel:
buy my single:
buy tickets to the Weird Weekend:
buy the CFZ 2016 Yearbook:
 
Gonzo Magazine #182
 
Wally, Rick Wakeman, Goblin, Grateful Dead, KLF, Ve, Gerald Durrell, Bill Drummond, Canterbury Sans Frontières, Mr Biffo, Roy Weard, Dogwatch, That Legendary Wooden Lion, Hawkwind, and Yes fans had better look out! This issue is dedicated to Dave McMann who died this morning. Rest in peace you mad old bugger.
 
Wally was/is one of those bands that really should have made it, but despite support from Bob Harris and Rick Wakeman, they didn’t. In this issue we talk to Stuart Rhodes, the author of a
retrospective coffee table book about the band. John looks at how the world has changed in the past four decades, Alan reviews a book on American psychedelia, we talk to Ve, and discuss Bill Drummond, and Biffo makes fart jokes about American politicians. It doesn’t get much better than this! And there are radio shows from Strange Fruit and Mack Maloney, Friday Night Progressive, and we send the presenter of Canterbury Sans Frontières to a desert island. We also have the latest installment of the saga of Xtul, and columns from all sorts of folk including Roy Weard, Mr Biffo, Neil Nixon and the irrepressible Corinna. There is also a collection of more news, reviews, views, interviews and pademelons ouyside zoos(OK, nothing to do with small marsupials who have escaped from captivity, but I got carried away with things that rhymed with OOOOS) than you can shake a stick at. And the best part is IT's ABSOLUTELY FREE!!!
 
This issue features:
Gerald Durrell,  Arthur Lee, Love, Joe Bonamassa, Liz Lenten, Auburn, Ozzy and Sharon Obsourne, Sex Gang Children, Strange Fruit, Friday Night Progressive, Isao Tomita, Peter Behrens, Joe Temperley, John Stabb, The Beatles, Osibisa, Billy Cobham, Wayne Kramer at the Pink Fairies, Al Stewart, The RAZ Band, The Flying Burrito Bros, Sneaky Pete Kleinow, Rick Wakeman, Wally, Stuart Rhodes, Suspiria, Goblin, Alan Dearling, Ve, Roy Weard, John Brodie-Good, Mr Biffo, Matthew Watkins, Hawkwind, Xtul, Bill Drummond, The Who, Elvis, Genesis, Neil Nixon, Burzum, Les Batards du Nord
                                                                                   
Read the previous few issues of Gonzo Weekly:
 
Issue 181 (Beatles)
Issue 180 (Beltane)
Issue 179 (Gregg Kofi Brown)
Issue 178 (Viv Stanshall)
Issue 177 (David Gilmour)
Issue 176 (Joey Molland and The Raz Band)
Issue 175 (Larry Sanders)
Issue 174 (Keith Emerson)
Issue 173 (Pink Fairies action figures)
Issue 172 (4th Eden)
Issue 171 (Keith Levene)
Issue 170 (Wildman Fischer)
Issue 169 (Wildman Fischer)
Issue 168 (Wakeman/Bowie)
Issue 167 (Paul Kantner)
Issue 166 (Spirits Burning)
 
 
All issues from #70 can be downloaded at www.gonzoweekly.com if you prefer. If you have problems downloading, just email me
 
and I will add you to the Gonzo Weekly dropbox. The first 69 issues are archived there as well. Information is power chaps, we have to share it!
 
You can download the magazine in pdf form HERE:
 
SPECIAL NOTICE: If you, too, want to unleash the power of your inner rock journalist, and want to join a rapidly growing band of likewise minded weirdos please email me at jon@eclipse.co.uk The more the merrier really.
 
* The Gonzo Daily is a two way process. If you have any news or want to write for us, please contact me at jon@eclipse.co.uk. If you are an artist and want to showcase your work, or even just say hello please write to me at gonzo@cfz.org.uk. Please copy, paste and spread the word about this magazine as widely as possible. We need people to read us in order to grow, and as soon as it is viable we shall be invading more traditional magaziney areas. Join in the fun, spread the word, and maybe if we all chant loud enough we CAN stop it raining. See you tomorrow...
 
* The Gonzo Daily is - as the name implies - a daily online magazine (mostly) about artists connected to the Gonzo Multimedia group of companies. But it also has other stuff as and when the editor feels like it. The same team also do a weekly newsletter called - imaginatively - The Gonzo Weekly. Find out about it at this link: www.gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.co.uk
 
* We should probably mention here, that some of our posts are links to things we have found on the internet that we think are of interest. We are not responsible for spelling or factual errors in other people's websites. Honest guv!
 
* Jon Downes, the Editor of all these ventures (and several others) is an old hippy of 56 who - together with an infantile orange cat named after a song by Frank Zappa, and two small kittens, one totally coincidentally named after one of the Manson Family, purely because she squeaks, puts it all together from a converted potato shed in a tumbledown cottage deep in rural Devon which he shares with various fish. He is ably assisted by his lovely wife Corinna, his bulldog/boxer Prudence, his elderly mother-in-law, and a motley collection of social malcontents. Plus.. did we mention the infantile orange cat, and the adventurous kittens?

NEWS FROM NOWHERE: Friday/Saturday

ON THIS DAY IN - 1506 - In Spain, Christopher Columbus died in poverty. 
And now some more recent news from the CFZ Newsdesk


  • In or out – what’s the best for British bats?
  • 'Killed this here critter': outrage after US ranch...
  • World's smallest porpoise 'at the edge of extincti...
  • Rare whale found on Australian beach believed to b...


  • Citizen scientists can help protect endangered spe...


  • AND TO WHISTLE WHILE YOU WORK... (Music that may have some relevance to items also on this page, or may just reflect my mood on the day)